Normal
by Cleo Calliope
Summary: Ginny had always liked to think that she was special.


**Normal**

Ginny had always liked to think that she was special. That there was something in her somewhere that set her apart from other people - made her just a little bit different. All she had to do was find what that special thing was. The only problem was, there wasn't anything. She was the youngest of the Weasley's, the only girl... but she was still just one of seven. Being the youngest only met that whatever it was she wanted to do, one of her brothers had been there before her and had probably done it better anyway. And being the only girl didn't mean much at Hogwarts because there were hundreds of girls in that school. There was nothing to set Ginny apart from them. She was just another girl, just another Weasley, just another Gryffindor. Ginny was as unremarkable as they came and she knew it.

After all, didn't every little girl want to be special? Didn't every one of them dream that she had some hitherto unexpected talent or way of thinking that would forever set her apart from those around her? Her simple desire to be somehow different from the all the other girls only served to make her all the more like them.

Sometimes she could get caught up in the idea that maybe... just maybe...

Then she'd met Harry and been so exited. What a let down that turned out to be.

The thing was, Harry was special. Not just because of how his parents had died, not just because he'd survived. There was something about _him_ that was special, different. Even Ginny could see it. Harry was magically tallented, powerful in his own understated way. He was the youngest seeker in a century and was incredible on the Quidditch field. Harry had more special about him than Ginny could have ever dreamed of!

What drove Ginny crazy once she got to know him was that he didn't want it! Harry didn't want to be special. He didn't even really try to use it. Everything that happened to him he more or less fell into, always simply at the right place at the right time. And he never once seemed to stop and marvel at it.

The only way in which Harry was just like everyone else in the world was that he ignored Ginny. He barely noticed her existence. But then, why should he? No one else did. Not even Tom when it came right down to it.

Ah yes, Tom. Her second "brush with greatness" as it were. Another let down.

Oh, Tom had _noticed_ her. He'd had to. She had been the one writing in his diary after all, his only contact with the outside world. One would have thought that would have made her special to him or that he'd a least pay enough attention to what she was saying to figure out the first thing about her. He hadn't though. All he'd seen was just another little girl.

She was simply someone he could fool into doing what he wanted her to do. After all, Voldemorte was a cunning manpiulater, as Dumbledore had told her parents. What chance could a normal girl like Ginny have against him?

Cunning manipulator, indeed.

Oh yes, Tom was a very cunning manipulator... later in life maybe. Ginny could testify to the fact that he certainly wasn't that good at it at 15. His attempts to trick her had been pathetically transparent. She'd seen right through him from the start. Not that Ginny was stupid enough to actually _tell_ anyone that. Because then she would have to explain what had really happened and she didn't exactly have a burning desire to be expelled, thank you very much. Hagrid's wasn't the kind of "special" she was trying for. So, she let them all continue to think that she'd been lied to and tricked by an "evil genius" as McGonagall had put it.

Hardly. It had been a frustrating year. Ginny had finally made it to school where she thought she'd finally find some way to stand out, only to find that she really was exactly like everyone else. She wasn't special in any way, shape, or form. The only unusual thing to do with her at all was that her diary talked back to her. And even _that_ hadn't been as interesting as it should have been. The Basilisk had been the only worthwhile part. The only part she missed.

Ginny had known Tom was up to something from the first. But she waited, playing his game and hoping it was something a little less boring that most of her life. It had been exciting having a secret, even if it was only a possessed bit of a dead tree. And when she'd figured out what was going on, she'd been thrilled. Tom was the heir of Slytherin, he was trying to use her to let The Monster out. By extension Ginny became the only person in the school who knew what was in the Chamber of Secrets. Not to mention where it was and how t get into it.

Had Harry really needed to kill her Basilisk? It had been so beautiful, so magical and so very, very unique. She'd adored it from the first time she'd seen it. And despite Tom's belief that it was _his alone_ to command, the serpent had liked her as well. It had licked at her face with its forced tongue and closed its eyes, making little happy hissing sounds when she's scratched at the small, delicate scales on the back of it's neck. It was the best pet anyone could ever possibly have.

But Tom could spoil anything and things had become tedious very quickly. She could have played along with Tom's "mind games" in her sleep (and sometimes actually had). He become frustrated almost immediately with the fact that it was taking so long for the basilisk to actually kill someone. Ginny never had really known why he wanted that so badly. Where would killing someone got them? The school would have been closed and they'd have all been sent home. Oh yes, that would have been _very_ exciting.

So, it had been up to Ginny to take matters into her own hands and insure that the school year was interesting, not over prematurely. It was a thin line to walk, espeically with Tom complaining about the lack of carnage every step of the way. Of course, it had never occured to him that Ginny might have something to do with it, that the basilisk might have been listening to _her_ instead of _him_. She was just Ginny after all, one girl like so many others - too silly to know what was going on.

Stupid git.

Then there was the spell. Tom was going to suck her life out of her in order to become alive again - to leave the diary behind and enter into the real world to continue his diabolical reign of terror! Had he thought that no one would notice a sudden new student or that a 15 year old with no certifications could just go off into the world and make it on his own with no problems? But then Tom never did plan very far in advance. Sometimes Ginny wondered if he was really was Voldemorte at all or if it was just another one of his pretensions. She'd find the idea that Tom Riddle had delusions grandeur much faster than believing he'd actually managed to become great later on. She just could see no way that his juvenial kind of scheming could ever have brought the Wizarding world to a civil war. After all, if it hadn't been for Ginny his little reign of terror over the school would have been over before it began.

In the end though, it really didn't matter. Because Tom was still just a memory trapped in a book. It was Ginny who had to proform the spell that set things in motion. Tom was sure he had her entirely under his power and that she's mindlessly proform a spell that would kill her simply because he told her to. He'd believed her to be entirely unaware of what was going on anyway. She was supposed to have been just following orders like a mindless Golem or something.

But like always, Tom's abilities were lacking and it was up to Ginny to make anything happen all on her own. She'd done the spell, but not as he'd intended. Instead of him soaking up her life, _she_ had been soaking up _his_ knowledge and memories. If Tom had bothered to read the fine print in the spellbook he would have known that it was the one doing the absorbing of power that was was rendered unconcious in the early stages of the spell as their mind and body was flooded with new things, _not_ the other way around.

What. An. Idiot.

And it had all been going so _well_ until Harry interfered believing, like everyone else, that poor little naive Ginny was in the clutches of an "evil genius" and needed rescuing. She could have killed him. Oh, it wasn't that she didn't _like_ Harry. He was certainly very likeable in his own rather dorky way. But she was so _annoyed_ and _jealous_ it practically made her sick to her stomach every time she saw him. And then he'd stubbled in and screwed up her one chance at becoming someone special herself.

She'd had to think fast when she woke up, playing the frightened little victim for all she was worth. He'd believed her entirely. Pathetic. Of course, everyone else had believed her too. But then, she was Ginny after all. Of course, she'd been duped. She couldn't possibly have gone alone with such a horrible plan. She was too nice a girl for that. Besides being a Weasley and everyone knew Weasleys never did evil things. And she'd been saved by Harry, which seemed to seal it all perfectly. Everything was exactly as it should be.

People could be so blind.

What Ginny wouldn't give for a moment of Harry's importance. People actually _listened_ when Harry said something. Whether they believed him or not had nothing to do with it. Everyone always argued about whether important people were right or wrong. The point wasn't that he was sometimes made fun of. The point was he wasn't ignored. He was noticed. He was _someone_. And instead of taking that for that for the gift it was, he whined about it. He said he just wanted to be _normal_. What was so wonderful about being normal? It was boring. But even when he complained about it, saying he wanted things to be different, he was using what he had. Because he had people to talk to about it, he was simpythised with, paid attention to. In other words, people were _listening_.

What Ginny wouldn't give to be listened to, just once. She wouldn't mind being teased or laughed at because if someone was teasing her they had noticed her enough to _bother_ teasing.

But no one would ever listen to little Ginny Weasley. Why would they?

And now that Tom was gone, with all that knowledge he hadn't known how to use. And her basilisk was dead, the first pet she'd ever had... She was right back were she'd been before. She was just another little girl, one of hundreds, all exactly alike. All with dreams and freckles and the hope that there was _something _in them to make them even a little different than all other others.

She could just strangle Harry. She'd been so close. But oh well. Back to the drawing board as it were.

Ginny Weasley was not going to remain Normal forever. She'd find some way of standing out even if it killed her. There were other avenues to be explored. Quidditch maybe. Who knew, maybe she could shock them all with unexpected talent. It was a long shot, but anything was better than nothing. Or maybe when she graduated she'd change her name, dye her hair and become the next Dark Lord. Dark Lady? Whatever. Because if Tom was any indication of the caliber of "genius" it took to be a dark wizard, she could do it in her sleep.

It was a thought anyway.

Because she had to think of something. Being normal was too boring for words.


End file.
